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Plant-like robot can grow 250 times its length, manipulate objects, form complex shapes

A new soft robot designed by researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara can ‘grow’ like a plant — only much faster.

Image credits Elliot W. Hawkes et al., 2017.

A team from Stanford Uni and the University of California, led by Elliot Hawkes of UoC’s Department of Mechanical Engineering designed and build a prototype soft-robot that can grow to explore its environments, akin to a vine of fungus. The design could help create a new class of robots which can traverse cramped or otherwise constrained environments.

The robot’s mechanical body is housed inside a plastic tube reel. The tube can be pneumatically extended, in a manner similar to how some invertebrates (such as Sipunculus nudus, the peanut worm) move around.

The plastic tube also allows the robot to change direction — one component handles the inflating process, while another allows the whole thing to shift direction. To see when it’s about to run into something, the robot also comes equipped with a nose-mounted camera.

Overall, the robot can extend up to 72 meters in length, at a speed of 10 meters per second. As a proof-of-concept of their prototype bot, Hawkes’ team had it crawl through flypaper, glue, even over a bed of nails.